The Fourth Assassin

Chapter 21

Sergeant Abayat pushed two eight-inch-long boxes toward Omar Yussef on a green plastic tray. “Famous hot dogs in traditional sauce,” he said. “Eat them, and you’ll really be American.”

Though he was ravenous, Omar Yussef restrained himself out of politeness. He reached for one of the hot dogs, lifting it from the box with care, so that the sauerkraut wouldn’t fall to the table, and ate. He rarely consumed food that hadn’t been prepared by his wife, because he preferred the most traditional and time-consuming Arab recipes. Still, he had to acknowledge that the faint savor of smoked meat from the spongy hot dog and the spiciness of the sauce were pleasing. Or perhaps I’m even more hungry than I realize, he thought.

“It’s very good, O Hamza.” He swallowed a bite. “Many thanks.”

“We must thank Allah. To your doubled health, ustaz.” The detective checked the luminous blue dial of his watch. “We’ll give the technical team another few minutes to scope out the scene, then I’ll take you to show me around, to describe what happened.”

Omar Yussef wiped his fingers on a paper napkin and took the Omani dagger from his pocket. He gave it to Hamza with the message that had been hidden within. Hamza slipped the knife out of the scabbard to examine the blade and laid it on the tray. He read the message. “If you had only brought this to me right away, we might have captured the man who tried to shoot you.”

“And Nizar.”

“I’m a good detective, but even I couldn’t trap a phantom.”

“I was going to show you the dagger, but I was sidetracked.” Omar Yussef finished the hot dog and took a swig of lemonade. “Why don’t you believe that I saw Nizar tonight? Are you really so sure of the identification of the headless body?”

Hamza fingered the slip of paper that had come with the dagger. Omar Yussef recognized in his face the kind of stubborn stiffness that came over his pupils when they refused to admit an error in the classroom.

“I saw Nizar right here, down the street from this restaurant,” he said. “Then I was chased by a man who tried to kill me. He wanted to kill Nizar, too, I’m sure.”

“To kill him again,” Hamza said.

Omar Yussef ate the second hot dog, glaring over his glasses at Hamza.

“Those dogs are kosher.” The detective’s smile was hesitant, as if he wanted to make up to Omar Yussef for his suspicion and hostility. “That’s almost as good as halal.”

“I don’t care about our dietary laws. I care about these murders in Little Palestine.” Omar Yussef reached into his pocket for the prayer schedule he had taken from the bulletin board in the cafe. His thumb smeared sauce on the corner as he handed it to Hamza. “I found this in Marwan’s place,” he said.

Hamza’s look was reproachful. “You took it from the crime scene?”

Omar Yussef wiped his mustache with a napkin. “I thought I might need to know what time I should pray.”

“Screw your mother, ustaz. I bet you haven’t prayed since you were a child young enough to believe in djinns.”

“According to you, I still believe in djinns. I saw one tonight.”

Hamza cast his eyes across the top of the sheet of paper. “The Alamut Mosque.”

“A schedule from the same mosque was on the refrigerator in Ala’s apartment, where I found the headless body. Isn’t it worth finding out more about this mosque?”

“Do you think I’m an idiot, ustaz? I already tried. It doesn’t exist. I even asked your son about it during our interview. He said he hadn’t heard of it.”

“Someone just prints up a prayer schedule for the fun of it? I’m sure these prayer times refer to something else. It must be a code or a signal. Look, once a week the time for the Maghrib prayer is wrong by an hour, but always on a different day.”

Hamza stood, pocketing the paper. “If we find Nizar’s head, we’ll ask it the secret of the Alamut Mosque.”

“The message that came with the dagger referred to an incident in the history of the Assassins.” Omar Yussef rose, wincing at the pain in his ankle. “Allusions such as this are everywhere in this case. ‘Alamut’ is another one. It was the Castle of the Assassins. I think this mosque-or at least its listing of prayer times-is connected somehow to the murders.”

Hamza headed for the door. Omar Yussef noticed the knife still on the green tray. He picked it up and called after Hamza, but the detective was already outside. He slipped it into his pocket and took his tray to the trash can by the exit before he went out.

The full moon lit the empty lot behind Playland a chalky blue. A cloud cut across it, and Omar Yussef remembered the prophecy of the end of time from the Koran. He lifted a finger to the sky. “When the Day of Judgment arrives with the splitting of the moon,” he said, “the Mahdi will come as our Messiah, according to the ancient sect of Assassins. He will deliver Allah’s judgment on humankind.”

“You think he’ll come to Brooklyn first?”

“The veil on the corpse in Ala’s apartment is a sign that the killer thinks of himself as the Mahdi, because the Veiled Man is the Mahdi’s enemy.” Omar Yussef’s mouth tingled from the spicy sauce on the hot dogs. He ran his tongue over his teeth.

“What’s the Mahdi supposed to look like? I seem to remember he’ll have gaps in his teeth, right?” the detective said.

Omar Yussef clenched his jaw as the pain in his ankle bit hard. “That’s right. It’s written that he’ll be very handsome, with long hair and a beautiful face-”

“Like Nizar.”

“-and he’ll die and come back from the dead.”

“As you claim Nizar just did?”

“Correct.”

Hamza pointed upward. “Well, that cloud just moved away, and the moon is full once more. So your Mahdi is out of luck.”

“That depends on how deluded he is.” Omar Yussef gave a laugh that came out like a hacking cough. “I caution you, if the world is about to end, it’d be best not to be sur prised by it.”

“I’m a policeman in New York City. Nothing could surprise me.”

“The end of civilization and all humankind?”

“Least of all that.”

Hamza led Omar Yussef into the Shoot the Freak gallery. Floodlights at both ends of the area illuminated the oil drums, the branches, the blocks of concrete. Omar Yussef whispered his thanks for the darkness that had made it possible for him to evade the gunman.

A forensics officer in a blue raincoat slouched toward Hamza. He handed two transparent plastic bags to the detective. Inside each was a bronze-colored lump of metal the size and shape of a piece of well-chewed gum.

“One of them was embedded in that dried tree trunk there by the wall,” the technician said. “The other one was in the base of the oil drum over by the hood of the Mustang.”

The hood of the car, Omar Yussef thought. He shot that close to me.

“They’re still very slightly malleable, suggesting they were discharged recently. I mean, they certainly haven’t been sitting here a month since some bunch of gang-bangers had a shootout. So I’d guess they’re from the gun of our perpetrator. Of course, it could just be that someone had a real rough game of paintball, eh, Sergeant?”

Hamza handed the bags back to the technician and swallowed hard. He spoke quietly to Omar Yussef, but didn’t look at him. “Where did you say you saw Nizar?”

At the entrance to Playland, Hamza took a flashlight from his pocket. As he pulled the door open, its hinges squealed and echoed through the hall.

“I went in this direction,” Omar Yussef said, leading Hamza by the hand across the puddled floor. “This was where I first heard him whistle. When I got to this spot, I saw him.”

“And the shots came from behind you?”

“From over there, I think. Near where I entered.”

Hamza paced slowly toward the door from which Nizar had made his escape. He peered closely at the shattered doorframe where the third bullet had hit, then went outside.

Without the flashlight, Omar Yussef felt suddenly blind and alone. He struck his shoulder on the crumbling plaster of a pillar. Edging around it, he caught his knee on an old metal garbage can. He cursed and paused. He thought he had heard something move inside the garbage can when he jogged it. He lifted his foot and gave the can a gentle kick. The sound was repeated, a solid, dull connection, not the hollow crackle of trash.

“Hamza, over here,” he called.

When the detective directed his flashlight into the garbage can, he recoiled and braced himself against the pillar.

“What is it?” Omar Yussef said.

Hamza puffed out his cheeks and blinked hard.

I thought nothing could surprise a New York City detective, Omar Yussef said to himself. He took the flashlight from Hamza and shone it inside the garbage can. He gasped and turned his eyes away, as though they might somehow erase the few seconds during which they had focused on this awful sight.

In the bottom of the garbage can, staring up with eyes that seemed to register all the hopeless dereliction of the building where it lay, was the head of Omar Yussef’s former pupil, Rashid.